Media To Stay Stuck On Stupid?

No sooner than I post the post below on media coverage of Katrina, than I come across this excellent Jennifer Harper piece in WashTimes.

The general in charge of Louisiana's hurricane relief has admonished reporters not to confuse questions with answers, and urged them to give the public facts -- not exaggerations and rumors that several media organizations now say corrupted coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

"Don't get stuck on stupid, reporters," Lt. Gen. Russel Honore first told them last week. "We are moving forward. And don't confuse the people, please. You are part of the public message. So help us get the message straight."

The article includes this explanation of the media's poor performance:

"The fog of war and the gusts of a hurricane both cloud and obscure vital truths," said Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

"What we're seeing here is no different than the reports of museum looting right after U.S. troops entered Baghdad. It's not that different from election night 2000 when some journalists prematurely declared a winner. In all three cases, the public would have been served by a bit more patience and less feigned certainty."

OK, fine. But why don't they learn? Why doesn't some hardnosed editor somewhere stop the process and say, "Hey, wait a minute! This is just like Baghdad and Tallahassee. You'd better check those facts before we go with it."

But why stop the fun? It's so exciting to report dead babies in coolers, bodies stacked in morgues and endless rapes in the restrooms. It lets reporters be racist for a moment while hiding behind their mantel of cool journalistic objectivity.

It's no wonder that Gallup finds 49% of the people reporting that the media is unreliable.